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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7182276" data-attributes="member: 4937">a) The quote itself is from The Hobbit.b) In context, the song is not referring to events of the first age, or the second age, but rather to much more recent events after the founding of the Kingdom Under the Mountain by Thorin's grandfather.  The dwarves wrought mighty spells while in Erebor.c) Thorin mentions how the dwarves were found of making magical toys, such that the "toy market of Dale was a wonder of the world".   Well, after the dwarves reestablish the kingdom under the mountain, we get to see some of these magical toys at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, purchased by Bilbo to be party favors for young Hobbit's at his 111st birthday party.   The dwarves continue to make magical things using their magic even up to the events of The Lord of the Rings.Now, in Tolkien's legerdemain 'magic' is a very slippery subject.  It refers to having authority and understanding, such that you can command things.   The magic of the dwarves is the authority and understanding they have over the stone from which they were made, and which has been bestowed on them by their maker Aulë.  They cannot be corrupted by exercising their native authority and understanding, provided they do so with good intent.  Dwarves are often corrupted by greed - the desire to possess and hold on to things to the exclusion of others, even if they themselves make no use of it.  Ironically, Dwarves speak bitterly about the very same trait occurring in dragons that they themselves are prone to.  Corruption involves trying to gain authority that isn't inherent in your beings, such as command over other free beings or command over everything, or using your own authority for evil purposes.   So most magic in Middle Earth doesn't necessarily look like spellcraft as we think about it.  It's certainly not 'occult' in nature.   The only 'wizards' in the canon are those ainur of the same order Gandalf belongs to, the Istari.  Sorcerers refer to those beings which practice magic by invoking the power of Morgoth or Sauron, and using their arts and devices - such as the Ringwraith's power to break and rend things at a distance, or to amplify destructive effects, or to invoke dismay and despair, or to command others to do their bidding and break the will of others.  In effect, the sorcerers are priests of Sauron, able to invoke his power as one of the great of the ainur - and this 'false religion' is at the time of the third age basically the only religious belief in Middle Earth.   However, not all invocations are corrupting.  Good peoples of Middle Earth who are lorewise - that is, they've been taught about the fundamental nature of reality by the elves who received if from the Valar - frequently invoke the Valar by name, to receive blessings from them in a form of theurgy or supplication.   This is not exactly religious belief, because no one really has been instructed in how to worship, and the Valar specifically aren't asking to be worshipped, but it does prefigure religious belief in middle earth, and in D&D terms is a sort of 'divine magic'.  So there are a lot of things that the dwarfs would or could do that the Hobbits would recognize as being 'magic', even though any lorewise person could tell you that magic is a rather meaningless and undescriptive word that basically means, "things the Hobbits don't understand".  Nonetheless, since to a modern observer most (but not all of these things) would seem supernatural, in D&D terms they are magic and spells.   Of course, Tolkien certainly hints that technology is itself one of these sorts of things that in the story is called 'magic', so that the modern reader can recognize for example gunpowder within the story and in the magic fireworks of Gandalf.  So this ability to understand the universe and make new things out of it could be understood to be a part of 'human magic', and compounding gunpowder or a semiconductor would have been thought of as a spell or magical ritual by the hobbits.   But we, because we understand these things (well, maybe) would laugh at the question, "Is the computer magical?", just as the elves laughed at Sam's question about the rope - "I don't know what you mean, but it is certainly well made."</blockquote>

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